Valentine Poems
A Valentine
by Robert Graves
The hunter to the husbandman
Pays tribute since our love began,
And to love-loyalty dedicates
The phantom kills he meditates.
Let me embrace, embracing you,
Beauty of other shape and hue,
Odd glinting graces of which none
Shone more than candle to your sun;
Your well-kissed hand was beckoning me
In unfamiliar imagery.
......
Valentine
by Elinor Morton Wylie
Too high, too high to pluck
My heart shall swing.
A fruit no bee shall suck,
No wasp shall sting.
If on some night of cold
It falls to ground
In apple-leaves of gold
I'll wrap it round.
......
Autumn Valentine
by Dorothy Parker
In May my heart was breaking-
Oh, wide the wound, and deep!
And bitter it beat at waking,
And sore it split in sleep.
And when it came November,
I sought my heart, and sighed,
"Poor thing, do you remember?"
"What heart was that?" it cried.
Valentine's Day
by Jade Buehler
Cards, candy, necklaces and rings!
Men with their girlfriends,
Down on their knees.
Small candy hearts,
And big cuddly bears!
Everyone around is filled
With a lot of love and care;
Because it is a season for love,
And people kissing in the moonlight,
With doves circling overhead!
......
A Valentine For Esther
by Paul Breslin
Twelve winters now alone, my Es,
My Persian word for "star"
Would you have thought I'd love you less?
Or couldn't reach so far?
Unrequited Love Gone Too Far
by Jeffrey Pipes Guice
Valentine, Valentine,
Why do you refuse to be mine...
I send you expensive gifts
of red roses and fine wine...
I invite you to fancy restaurants,
And theatre and to the play...
You treat me with distain
And you tell me to ‘stay away’
......
The Lighted Window
by Sara Teasdale
He said:
"In the winter dusk
When the pavements were gleaming with rain,
I walked thru a dingy street
Hurried, harassed,
Thinking of all my problems that never are solved.
Suddenly out of the mist, a flaring gas-jet
Shone from a huddled shop.
I saw thru the bleary window
......
A Valentine's Song
by Robert Louis Stevenson
MOTLEY I count the only wear
That suits, in this mixed world, the truly wise,
Who boldly smile upon despair
And shake their bells in Grandam Grundy's eyes.
Singers should sing with such a goodly cheer
That the bare listening should make strong like wine,
At this unruly time of year,
The Feast of Valentine.
We do not now parade our "oughts"
......
Hugh Selwyn Mauberly (Part I)
by Ezra Pound
"Vocat aestus in umbram"
Nemesianus Es. IV.
E. P. Ode pour l'élection de son sépulchre
For three years, out of key with his time,
He strove to resuscitate the dead art
Of poetry; to maintain "the sublime"
In the old sense. Wrong from the start --
......
On The Lady Elizabeth, And Count Palatine Being Married On St. Valentine's Day
by John Donne
Hail Bishop Valentine, whose day this is,
All the air is thy Diocese,
And all the chirping choristers
And other birds are thy parishioners,
Thou marryest ever year
The lyric Lark, and the grave whispering Dove,
The Sparrow that neglects his life for love,
The household bird, with the red stomacher;
Thou maks't the black bird speed as soon,
As doth the Goldfinch, or the Halycon;
......
